Expats under the eye of Big Brother Immigration
Play
Exasperated, long-term resident farang who are dumbfounded by the latest four-page immigration form demanding to know the minutiae of their lives shouldn’t panic just yet. It is being piloted at a couple of places in Bangkok, but provincial offices claim
It might be a minor consolation to know that, in the Philippines in the 1970s, bureaucracy for foreigners was even more probing and involved providing a fresh “stool” and details of how many times you typically coughed in a 24-hour period. Foreigners were also required to use only government-owned banks in Manila, and to visit army headquarters annually to prove they were not naughty aliens.
Luckily, this procedure of the martial law era did not involve interviews or forms, but was limited to providing a bottle of Johnny Black along with an envelope marked “Happy birthday”.
Barry Kenyon
Pattaya
